Static Temporal Summation

Psychophysical rating of a rectangular static pressure stimulus.

The static temporal summation applies a constant pressure for a specified duration instead of a series of stimuli to determine the temporal summation of pressure stimulation.

During this pressure stimulation and for a period after the procedure, the participant’s VAS score will be recorded as the result of the procedure.

The procedure window for the <algometry-static-temporal-summation> procedure is shown in Figure 1. The procedure window consists of two areas: applied pressure and recorded responses.

Figure 1: Procedure window of the temporal summation procedure

The applied pressure area will display a legend indicating which cuff outlet(s) will be active and will plot the applied pressure over time.

Please see Algometry page for an introduction to the cuff pressure procedures and concepts that are common for these procedures before reading the rest of this procedure documentation.

Procedure definition

A static temporal summation procedure can be defined with the <algometry-static-temporal-summation> element within the <procedures> element in the Experiment Definition File (*.expx):

<algometry-static-temporal-summation id="AP2STSum" 
    name="Static Temporal Summation (Stop on VAS 10) [Cuff 1]"
    experimental-setup-id="vas"
    pressure-stimulate="AP2SR01.PTT"
    primary-cuff="1"
    second-cuff="false"
    stimulus-duration="60"
    tail-duration="20">
    <dependencies>
        <dependency id="AP2SR01"/>
    </dependencies>
</algometry-static-temporal-summation>

Listing 1: Definition of a static temporal summation procedure

Listing 1 has the following procedure specific attributes:

Attribute	Type	Specification
`pressure-stimulate`	double = Calculated(context)	The pressure that will be applied during the rectangular pressure stimuli.
`primary-cuff`	int=Calculated(tc)	Determines which cuff (1 or 2) will be used for the pressure stimulation.
`second-cuff`	bool	Inflate the second cuff together with the primary cuff.
`stimulus-duration`	double = Calculated(context)	The duration [s] of the constant pressure stimulation.
`tail-duration`	double = Calculated(context)	The duration after the cessation of the pressure stimulation in which the VAS score is recorded.

Scripting (Properties)

In addition to the properties that are common to all procedure results, the static temporal summation procedure result has the following procedure specific properties:

Name	Type	Specification
`NominalStimulatingPressure`	`double`	Stimulating pressure.
`SecondCuff`	`bool`	Was the second cuff inflated in parallel with the first cuffs (spatial summation).
`PrimaryChannel`	`int`	What was the primary cuff channel. Please note this is only relevant if
`AbortCount`	`int`	Number of samples in the tail of the recording (after the cessatation of the stimulus).
`AverageVASStimulation`	`double`	Average VAS rating during the stimulation.
`AverageVASTail`	`double`	Average VAS rating in the tail of the recording.
`AverageVAS`	`double`	Average VAS rating during the entire recording.
`VASEndOfStimulation`	`double`	VAS rating at the end of the stimulation.
`VASEndOfTail`	`double`	VAS rating at the end of the recording.
`VASAreaStimulation`	`double`	Area under the curve (AUC) of the ratings during the stimulation.
`VASAreaTail`	`double`	Area under the curve (AUC) of the ratings during the tail.
`VASArea`	`double`	Area under the curve (AUC) of the ratings during the entire recording.
`StimulationPressure`	`List<double>`	Stimulation pressure during the procedure.
`VAS`	`List<double>`	Rating of the stimulation pressure during the procedure.
`Time`	`List<double>`	Time of the values in the `StimulationPressure` and `VAS` data points.

Example protocols

Introduction to Cuff Pressure Algometry.

Last modified May 21, 2026: Device server implementation (#1375) (5dd5648d)